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THAN THE POPE! We've been trawling the internet, trying to find out how many poor saps actually went to see Pope Benedict during his recent visit to the UK. Well, we say the UK – but that didn't actually include Wales, did it? There must be a few Welsh Catholics, we presume, but we note that His Holiness couldn't be arsed to pop in to Cardiff or Swansea so presumably there aren't enough actual paying members. According to the website of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Westminster, he was going to use his address during the Mass at Westminster Cathedral to “greet the people of Wales” from there, which I'm sure made them feel a lot more valued. Anyway, the internet seemed remarkably coy about actual numbers, but we managed to find that 71,000 turned up at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow, 3,000 young people met him at Twickenham, the Mass at Westminster drew a congregation of 2,000 while a further 2,135 youngsters waited outside. For the prayer vigil in Hyde Park the Catholic Herald claimed 80,000, with a further 200,000 lining the route through London. In Birmingham, 60,000 attended the Beatification of Cardinal Newman, while a group of 600 gathered to see the old goat off from the airport. That's a total of 418,735 people. OK, let's be generous and call it half a million. David Cameron told the Pope “You spoke to a nation of 6 million Catholics but were heard by a nation of 60 million citizens” Well, all right, Dave, heard, maybe. Listened to, though? That's another matter. I don't think a lot of people in this country feel inclined to take lectures on being wicked atheists from some old Nazi in a frock. And as for his apologies for the child abuse, he can stuff them up the Catholic priests' favourite orifice. He can meet as many victims as he likes, but most of us will accept his apologies only when every single kiddy-fiddler is handed over to the police instead of being sheltered under the Church's voluminous skirts. So, half a million of the faithful, the curious or the prurient turned out to line the streets. That's only one out of every twelve British Catholics could be bothered. Or one out of every 120 people in the UK. This website gets 20 million visits every year, so The GOS is 40 times as popular as the Pope. Don't forget you read it here first. Well, if we're honest, you're not likely to read it anywhere else, are you? There's one activity in which we at GOS can't hold a candle to the Catholics, though. And that's the marketing of completely tasteless merchandise. Go and visit any Catholic shrine on the continent – Lourdes, say, or Sacré Coeur or Lisieux – and you'll find the streets lined with shops selling plastic glow-in-the-dark models of the Virgin Mary that play a tune when you press her tit. But that's in France, the national shrine of tasteless tat. You'd think we could do a bit better in this country. So what did the organisers of the papal visit offer as their official merchandise? Souvenirs included papal flags inscribed with the date and logo, baseball caps, a crystal bracelet, rosaries with pictures of the Pope, prayer cards, tote bags, branded T-shirts ... and an electric flashing candle. Not included in the official list but also available is the Virgin Mary USB stick. The manufacturer’s description says ... She’s appeared in modern guise to secure and safely store what is most important and precious to us (what, like pictures of children? - GOS), offering heavenly support next to the computer; especially for those situations where prayer is the only solution. Standing dignified on her socket, enshrined in Plexiglas, when work calls she frees herself of her surroundings. Connected with the computer she comes to life, her red LED heard starts to beat – in passive state slowly, quicker whilst connecting or saving data. On her halo is engraved the prayer – “Oh Maria, keep my data safe!” Really. You have to ask, don't you ... are these people entirely sane? Yet they presume to lecture the rest of us about our morality and behaviour, they criticise our legislation and they demand the right to run their own schools and condemn new generations of children to live in their own stink of ignorance, greed and superstition. And when they come calling, we have to pick up the bill which could be anything between £12million and £100million depending on whether you listen to the Catholic Herald or the National Secular Society. either on this site or on the World Wide Web. Copyright © 2010 The GOS |
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